⚡ February 14, 2014

I Can Finally Come Clean 🛀

Believe it or not, this is a photo of two bunnies dressed in clothing, standing on miniature chairs at a table with radio equipment on it. Of course, they are wearing earphones.

So here we are. We still have each other, and Future Theater on Monday nights, so there’s that. I am free from the yoke of UFO Magazine, thank you very much. I have fired myself, slowly and agonizingly, over a somewhat turbulent period of ten years, give or take a couple of months. I thought it would be fun and exciting, and it never in fact was.

That’s all I’ll say about the magazine for now, because I’m focusing on the positive. On the positive growth and creation of a new company to take the place of UFO Magazine. I’ll keep all the stuff I like and let all the stuff I don’t like just drift away on the river of time. Someone else can maintain that particular garbage skow.

I’m actually hoping to redeem my priceless education from one of the top universities in the world, but that’s a silly thought, really. You can’t shake off an Ivy-League degree any more than you can shake off your nationality or the length of your arm. If I chose to work very hard in an irrational field of inquiry for a very long time, so be it. If you get yourself well-educated and you’ve been inside the marble-stepped tower, you really shouldn’t be hanging out with street folk and people of the fringe, and I know that. Most sane people call this line of work intellectual slumming, even if they make a living from it. I realize I’ve stayed way too long.

At some point I might have stopped observing and tried to really fit in, but it never really worked. I remember being at a UFO conference and marveling at how nerdy and socially unstable the crowd was, but with none of the brains that you would at least find with computer nerds. And none of the fun you would find with comic-book nerds. No strange dark edges, no gothic anarchy – just crazy fear sharp in the air and cheesy belief, sticky and needy.

I want to try to save the few shreds of self-esteem I have left. I want to once again feel pride when I tell someone what I publish. The letters “UFO” have not been easy to pronounce with a straight face, I’m sorry to say. I’m also sorry to say that I’ve not succeeded in making the topic mainstream. I’ve tried, but there was once a heyday, they tell me, with low-hanging juicy fruit and all the nuts you could gather and call it a windfall. The crowds have since moved on, some following the sitar and some following the fife and drums.

So I am moving on, too. Listen to Future Theater any Monday night at 10 pm and you’ll always be in the loop if you’ve been curiously following the ups and downs of our business life. If you have no idea about what’s going on – like the poor fellow who wandered in to the front page of UFOmag.com and is having a bad time of it in Disqus – well, welcome to my world. The wonderful wacky world of UFOs and other insane things that go bump in the night.

And if you wonder what all of that is about, let me introduce you to my latest work of art, the All-Minion, all-fun Frequently Asked Questions. If you like the Minions, let me know. I know you will if you don’t. 🐔